Navigating the Temporal Landscape of Trauma

Citation

Hu, Laura D. (2021) Navigating the Temporal Landscape of Trauma. Senior thesis (Major), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/13ss-ch27. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06032021-174301989

Abstract

Trauma transforms time and narrative. Psychological trauma, the overwhelming mental response to distressing events, distorts the manner in which its victim perceives and experiences time. The representation of trauma is not uniform. Authors use different approaches to speak the unspeakable, to remember the unrememberable. This paper examines three novels and their depiction of time after trauma: Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Readings of these three novels engage with one another, enhancing the ways in which trauma can be understood. The synthesis of philosophical, scientific, and literary frameworks provides the multifaceted and necessary lens through which to examine the narrative of trauma. In each of these three novels, trauma leaves a mark—a remainder—that the passage of time cannot erase, and that even the altered temporal frameworks cannot fully represent.

Thesis Files